Sian Parry Jones

In my personal Christmas disaster list earlier, I forgot to mention the various ailments that everyone seems to succumb to at that time of year. I think I might have blanked them from my mind…Anyway with the result that January always raises the intention of a good old detox.

Don’t be too harsh on yourself though, while you are doing without calories and alcohol (until Burns Night at least) you can still treat yourself in other ways.

A morning or afternoon at Fletchers Cottage Spa at Archerfield is the perfect antidote to the winter Blues – you can just drink in the interior design.

I have been very fortunate to have had the opportunity to interview the instigator of the project. The styling of the interior is down to the vision of London based designer, Sian Parry Jones. We met at Fletchers over a coffee.

HI How did the project come about for you Sian?

SPJ I met the owner of Archerfield through mutual friends. He was keen to set up a spa in the complex, my original background is beauty and I have more recently project managed several property renovations, including my main family home, a converted barn in Somerset and a spa on stilts in a lagoon in Antigua. He liked my ideas and I was basically given a free reign to develop the building with a local building firm, Baseline Developments.

HI What was your inspiration for Fletchers?

SPJ Primarily old farm buildings, I was brought up on a smallholding and my brother owns a farm now. The surrounding East Lothian landscape was a major inspiration too and I wanted to use as many reclaimed, salvaged and natural materials as possible.

HI Tell us more about some of the materials you have used.

SPJ The corridors are lined with wooden potato crates from nearby farm, Luffness Mains. I was in a taxi to the airport and we passed a huge stack of them piled high. I asked the driver to stop right there and then and ran around, trying to get hold of the right person to speak to without missing my plane – quite a feat!

The mirrors in the manicure area are framed with old metal windows from a building in Paris.

HI Did you train in design?

SPJ No, when I left school I trained as a beauty therapist. I set up a salon in Bristol, which I soon sold in order to jump on a plane to the USA. I got a job working for Estee Lauder, returning to the UK to work for Yves St Laurent. I was then Sales Director for Aveda for many years, which involved working with partners to build lots of spa’s. Aveda was one of the leading environmental brands in those days, it was very ahead of its time when it was launched. To cut a long story short, I ended up Head of Personal Shopping at Harrods, developing their Concierge Service. I found I was putting together whole houses for clients, right down to the last teaspoon and that was my training.

HI What have you been working on since Fletchers?

SPJ A beautiful private home overlooking the coast in Jersey and a Cocktail Bar in Soho, called, by a strange coincidence, Archer Street…!